By Moristotle
My wife and I watched Sir David Attenborough’s biography of his (and Earth’s) life yesterday afternoon. Attenborough is 94 years old, near the end of his own life. And much of Earth’s life is also near its end, including human life, if we don’t act quickly to halt the Earth’s sixth major extinction event in its last 2.5 billion years. (The fifth occurred about 66 million years ago, following the collision of a large asteroid or comet – 7 to 50 miles in diameter – with the Earth, which led to the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs.)
Attenborough’s story of his decades of traveling among the world’s wildlife is beautiful, and there are probably few Western adults who have not seen more than one of his “Nature” specials. But the story of the growth of human population, the decimation of natural habitats, the overfishing of oceans, the continued reliance on fossil fuels, the destruction of rain forests, the melting of icecaps, and the extinction of one species of animal after another is decidedly not beautiful – it is horrific.
That is, this documentary calls out to be watched, for its story about the man beloved, as well as for its story of what awaits life on the planet...unless steps are taken. It is sad that our politics, our election campaigns, hardly note the disaster. It’s more about selfish issues hoped to secure decided voters and maybe win a few more votes.
The documentary concludes, though, still yet, on a note of hope, and Attenborough gives several examples of countries that have taken steps in the right direction, including Japan for its zero population growth, Costa Rica for its reforestation, The Netherlands for it sustainable agriculture, and the island country of Palau for its fishing restrictions to revitalize the sea.
You can view a trailer for the documentary on YouTube:
and the documentary itself on Netflix (running time: 1 hour 23 minutes). I found the link to the trailer in the World Wildlife Federation’s article about the documentary, and Natalia Winkelman reviewed the documentary on October 4 in the NY Times.
| Copyright © 2020 by Moristotle |
Thank you for making your readers aware of what will no doubt be an amazingly informative and visually stunning documentary. In his long life and career, Attenborough has produced some of the most incredible footage ever seen of the natural world; I hope this isn't his last such effort, but if it is, I hope it properly honors his decades of great work.
ReplyDeleteThe comment of an atmospheric scientist friend:
ReplyDeleteYes, Mother Earth will do fine – after we're gone!
But, as you know, I'm hopelessly pessimistic on the subject, having had my eyes opened in the 1970s, while there was still time to prevent it, to the climate disruption that would result if fossil fuel burning was not vastly curtailed.
As, of course, it was not. It's the age-old story of the short-term private profit vs. the long-term public good.
R.I.P.
But shifting gears a tad, there was a good story in the N Y Times yesterday about Big Coal (“‘The Coal Industry is Back,’Trump Proclaimed. It wasn’t.”). Did you see it? Long, but worth the slog – not least because of the link to John Prine singing “Paradise” (a town in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky)!